Seagate's New Drives Offer Mix-and-Match Connectors

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Seagate's New Drives Offer Mix-and-Match Connectors

Seagate's making a big bet on SATA connectors, though the company wouldn't describe it that way: Its new FreeAgent GoFlex line of hard drives and accessories makes use of the standard interface to offer a wide range of easy connectivity options.

Out of the box, the basic drive comes with a USB 2.0 connector. If your next notebook sports a USB 3.0 port, eSATA port, or a FireWire 800 connection, no problem: Just remove the Seagate drive's back end and plug in the corresponding cable kit (sold separately by Seagate for $20 to $40). Your former USB 2.0 drive now has a new type of interface.

Inside the cable kit and the back end of the GoFlex drive are SATA connectors. That's a standard interface used for the drives inside computers, but it's somewhat unusual to see one outside the case of a PC. Fear not, though: You don't need to know anything about ports because the cables just plug in and work automatically.

So far, this isn't much that a standard multi-interface hard drive doesn't accomplish, assuming all you wanted to do is plug into USB ports some days and FireWire ports other days. But it's the extras that make the system really interesting.

Seagate says it can add features to the connectors, making it possible to bundle (for instance) automatic backup software with a cable adaptor, turning your vanilla portable hard drive into a one-step backup machine.

Bundled with the drives is software to enable Macs to read NTFS-formatted hard drives, making it easier for these drives to go from one platform to another with ease.

Seagate's upcoming accessories add more use possibilities. The GoFlex Net is a compact dock that connects to your home network via Ethernet. It has two slots on the top for GoFlex drives to dock (via their internal SATA ports) and two additional USB 2.0 ports on the back for connecting any other storage devices. Once attached, the drives are accessible throughout your local network or over the web, using the dock's Pogoplug-driven web interface.

GoFlex TV applies the same concept to your TV. It's a simple media-playing device that connects via HDMI to your television. When you drop in a GoFlex drive, the contents of that drive – video, audio and photos – become playable via a straightforward interface, using the included remote. You can also play videos from YouTube, slideshows from Picasa, and movies from Netflix. And, of course, if you've got a GoFlex Net device on your network, the media player can play content from that, too.

The basic GoFlex drives, which have 5400RPM hard disks inside, are available now for prices ranging from $100 (320GB) to $200 (1TB) with an included USB 2.0 connection. A faster (7200RPM) GoFlex Pro kit costs $140 for 500GB to $190 for 750GB.

The GoFlex Net network adapter will be available at the end of this month for $100, while the GoFlex TV HD media player will cost $130.